BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The Irish Republican Army may no longer want to fight the British, but detectives say it's still in business - as owners of pubs and clubs, smugglers of fuel and cigarettes, bank robbers by night and property investors by day.

Throughout the past 35 years of conflict over this British territory, the IRA has built a sophisticated criminal empire throughout Ireland and beyond, laundering profits through legitimately owned businesses and properties worth more than $400 million, anti-racketeering experts say.

Now that weapons inspectors have announced the IRA's disarmament, the political focus has turned to whether the underground group will renounce crime, too.

The British and Irish governments say political progress depends on reports being published in October and January from the Independent Monitoring Commission. Both governments formed the four-man panel - which includes a former top CIA official - chiefly to publicize IRA activities.

If these experts rule that the IRA is withdrawing from criminal activity, Britain and Ireland say negotiations should resume to revive the cornerstone of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord: power-sharing between the British Protestant majority and Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party.

Even the most ardent advocates of power-sharing say the IRA's criminal power has become the new deal-breaker. But IRA experts warn that the group is not about to cede control to common criminals.

"The IRA's criminal activity will be hard to hide but easy to deny," said Ed Moloney, author of "A Secret History of the IRA," who forecast that IRA racketeering "may even intensify."

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a veteran IRA commander who denies ever being a member, has repeatedly said IRA activity cannot be described as crime. At his most recent party conference in March, Adams said Sinn Fein would "refuse to criminalize those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives."

Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell, who is regularly briefed on IRA activity by the anti-terrorist and anti-racketeering branches of the Garda Siochana, Ireland's national police force, called Sinn Fein's line on IRA crime "a massive lie of Orwellian proportions."

Other politicians fear that Sinn Fein, growing rapidly in both parts of Ireland, derives an undemocratic advantage from deep IRA pockets. They note the party's ability to produce exceptional volumes of literature, posters and campaign workers at election time.

Sinn Fein says it negotiates better deals on printing, has an army of unpaid volunteers and publishes financial statements showing party coffers in the red.

Some analysts do not buy this.

"Using the proceeds of that IRA empire, Sinn Fein has a plan to buy its way into power in Ireland," said Kevin Toolis, author of "Rebel Hearts: A Journey Into the IRA's Soul."

Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau, the United Kingdom Assets Recovery Agency and the Police Service of Northern Ireland estimate that IRA rackets generate more than $20 million annually.

Those assessments exclude four massive Belfast robberies last year that police chiefs, the British and Irish governments and the Independent Monitoring Commission blamed on the IRA.

In December, a hostage-taking gang stole the equivalent of $50 million from the Northern Bank - a theft so colossal, at a moment of such relative peace, that IRA crime became a dominant political issue for the first time.

Police in February arrested more than a dozen IRA suspects, lawyers, accountants and loan sharks during raids across the Irish Republic. They seized more than $6 million worth of British bank notes.

Two detectives in the investigation, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said they suspect the IRA tried to plow Northern Bank loot into property in Britain and Bulgaria with guidance from Phil Flynn, a former Sinn Fein vice president and labor-union boss who most recently was chairman of the Irish division of the Bank of Scotland.

Flynn openly admits pursuing investments in Bulgaria on behalf of the man caught with most of February's money. Although Flynn resigned from several prominent business and government advisory posts, he denies any wrongdoing.